The alleged leader of the "Cut Throat City Snake Gang," a drug ring that claimed Lower 9th Ward territory around Flood and Marais streets, received a 20-year prison sentence Friday as a four-time criminal under the state's habitual offender law. Corey "Da Chef" Expose, 33, accepted the flat 20-year sentence rather than risk life behind bars.

Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, March 6, 2012Times-Picayune archive A jury convicted Expose, 33, in March on a charge of attempted possession of heroin.

Expose was convicted in March on a charge of attempted possession of heroin from a 2009 arrest.

In a separate case, Expose was among nine people, many of them related, who were indicted in September under an obscure state racketeering law, accused in a variety of alleged drug offenses. Many of the alleged crimes involved heavy volumes of drugs.

Two of the defendants are women. Several of the alleged gang members appear in a YouTube video, apparently cooking up drugs and mugging for the camera. That case remains pending, and Expose remains a defendant.

Expose has an extensive criminal history of drug offenses that includes a guilty plea in 2000 for possession with intent to distribute crack. Expose was sentenced to five years in prison for that crime. In 2005, he received a 30-month sentence as a multiple offender after pleading guilty to cocaine possession.

Among the others indicted in September was Bruce "Bald Head" Carter, who in 2004 pleaded guilty to aggravated second-degree battery and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Court records show a drug relationship between Carter and Expose that dates back at least 14 years.

The racketeering indictment is among a handful that Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro is pursuing under an obscure state law, in a tactic designed to paint a raft of seemingly isolated crimes into a picture of nefarious gang activity.

"We save it for the worst of the worst," said Cannizzaro spokesman Christopher Bowman when Expose and the eight other defendants were indicted. "With most cases, you're talking about a specific incident that happened on a specific day. Jurors are not provided any context."

Prosecutors used a similar tactic in indicting 11 young men allegedly involved in the "D-Block Gang," which police claimed sold prodigious amounts of drugs and meted out violence just off North Broad Street and Orleans Avenue in the 6th Ward.

Ten defendants in that case have pleaded guilty and received sentences ranging from three to 15 years in prison, court records show.